It was an interesting take on zombies. The technology to reanimate people is invented and at first everyone who can afford it does it. It has a troubling effect on the death penalty because now if evidence later exonerates someone who was executed the state can simply bring the wrongfully convicted back as a zombie. The problem is that when people are brought back they aren't the same. They no longer feel emotions, or at least, they're very faint. So generally people stop bringing people back. The problem is that there are already a huge number of zombies and most of them aren't particularly bright and at risk of going feral (turning into the stereotypical flesh eating zombie).

Mann was a police officer convicted of killing his wife. After mishandling of evidence comes to life, he's brought back as a zombie (or chak, the parlance of the book). Even though he's better off than most in terms of his retained intelligence, he still has problems with his memory. Nevertheless, he makes his post-death "living" as a private investigator.

I thought the question about how much of the human conscious/soul remains was an interesting one. If you've been brought back is it possible to destroy or release what remains of the soul? The book isn't entirely clear. Severing the head alone isn't enough to do it. But maybe going feral is.

Unfortunately, it just couldn't maintain my interest. It took me over a week to finish the last 100 pages.